Prey and Pack
by Asp Pentacle97
Summary: Two women. One is prey, one is pack. A short piece from Riddick's POV about the two women who changed his life. Ends where Pitch Black ends, but you could convince me to go farther.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Riddick. If I did, there would be so many more movies and Jack would not have died. I, however, am forced to use this nonprofit means of expressing my idea about this fantastic character. So don't sue me.

**Rating:** This is rated M because of swearing. Honestly though, I don't know how any Riddick fic _isn't_ rated M, for the language at the least.

**Author's Note:** This was just something that popped into my head when I was helping my Latin teacher. Poor woman probably would have expired if she had known what I was thinking. This is just kind of a contemplative piece from Riddick's POV about the two women who he cared for.

**Prey and Pack**

There have been two women who have come into my life and changed it. All the others came in and went out, leaving me pretty much the same as when they found me. Even that Furyan bitch. All she did was use a little bit of mystical shit to enhance what I already had. No, there have only been two women in the entirety of my existence that have had any lasting effect on me. And I met both of them on a planet that came straight from hell.

The first was Carolyn Frye. She was the docking pilot on the Hunter-Gratzner, the ship that was transporting me back to slam. When the shit hit the fan and things started to go to hell, Carolyn was ready to kill us all to save herself. I like that. I don't trust people who don't have a strong survival instinct. They're unpredictable.

One we were on that planet, Carolyn was the unofficial leader of our little psycho-fuck family. Johns hated that fact, which was another reason I liked her. You the saying, an enemy of my enemy…

She was brave, too. Even though I could smell the fear rolling off of her, she came closer and closer. I could have torn her jugular out if I had wanted. It was tempting, to say the least. She smelled so sweet, all sweat and courage and fear. Like the type of prey that would fight and struggle until the last, probably taking a piece of you with it. She was the type of woman who would make you choke on her on the way down. It was intriguing.

But what was even more interesting was what lay beneath that hard shell of hers: a heart. Yes, Carolyn Frye was actually a bit of a softie. She actually cared about the people in our miserable little band. That only added to her appeal. Underneath that hard skin was tender meat just waiting to be ripped open and devoured.

The second woman wasn't a woman as all, at least not when I met her. She was just a bit of a girl pretending to be a boy named Jack. Didn't fool me, of course. You can cut your hair as short as you want and dress in the baggiest clothes, but your scent will always give you away. And she smelled like a woman, through and through.

The kid had a bit of a hero-worship thing for me. It was entertaining. And gratifying, in a way. She wasn't scared of me. Not in the least. That little bit of a girl, who I could have snapped in half with one hand, didn't even flinch when I came near her. Part of me wanted to give her a reason to flinch, to remind her of why she should tremble when she heard my name. But surprisingly, it was the animal side that enjoyed having her close, enjoyed her lack of fear.

And so the animal decided that she was ours, our new pup. We would protect her. The moment Johns decided he wanted to cut her up and use her for bait was the moment he signed his death warrant. No one fucks with my pack.

When it became clear that they were all going to die in that canyon, my human side took over. The only thing the beast could do was to convince the human side to hide our pup, give her a little bit longer life. So I did. I found them shelter, and then I left. The human didn't want to die and the animal knew that Carolyn and the holy man would never let me take just the pup. I considered killing the other two, but the human in me wouldn't let the beast kill Carolyn, for she had brought the human out of hiding. So I left them both.

I wonder sometimes what would have happened if Carolyn hadn't come after me, or if she hadn't demanded we go back for Jack and the holy man. Would I have really left me pup there? The animal didn't want to, but Carolyn had brought out the human in me, damn her. The animal hated her for that. She made me weak, crippled me.

The look on Jack's face when she saw me again… I felt things I hadn't in a very long time. I was all warm and I just wanted to grab her and hold onto her. My pup was back with me and I was never letting her go again.

I wonder if she really meant what she said, about not have any doubts. Sitting in that dark cave, death beating its wings on the door, did her faith in me really never waver? If so, then she had far too much faith in me. If the beast had been fully in control, then she would have been right to not doubt me, to have faith in the pack. But there was the human in me, and that nearly caused her demise.

That was the difference between Jack and Carolyn. Carolyn was prey. She was brave, pretty prey, but prey all the same. The scent of fear was always on her. But Jack… Jack was never prey. Even though terrible thing had happened to her, things that made her a victim, she was never prey. She never smelled of fear. Instead it was the sharp, poignant scent of adrenaline. Carolyn may have woken the human inside of me, but Jack formed a bridge between the human and the animal. She was pack; ours to look after, ours to protect.

When Carolyn died, so did the human side's newfound control. The beast ripped through the walls and took back command. But it was changed. Jack had changed it. It wasn't gentler. If anything it was more deadly, for now we had something to fight for. Jack. Our pup, the pack we had never had. The one who had ripped apart my world and put it back together the way it was meant to be.

**A/N:** Not sure how I feel about this one. Just kind of something that slipped from my pen onto the paper. Please review and tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!


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